Renovating Eau Claire Golf & Country Club By: Nick Peinovich

Renovating Eau Claire Golf & Country Club:

By: Nick Peinovich

I have been with Eau Claire Golf and Country Club since 2008, serving as an Assistant Superintendent until 2016 when I was given the reigns from long time Superintendent, John Granholt (38 years at ECGCC). Eau Claire Golf and Country Club was incorporated in 1901, then

renovated in 1928 by Harry Vardon and Charles Ramsdell.

Shortly after starting as Superintendent, ECGCC started discussions to renovate the boring, “amoeba like” bunkers. In fact, I took over as Superintendent on September 1st and a ‘course

Above: 2 sets of new forward tees were built on each hole. This hole, #16 short par 3, saw green expansion, rerouting the cart path, and 1 new bunker in addition to renovation of the 2 existing bunkers Opposite Page: Completed construction of the bunkers at the 9th green.

audit’ was scheduled with the Green committee that coming Friday. The bunker discussion to that point had focused solely on replacing the existing sand with new, but I posed the question whether they were happy with the current bunker design. I was surprised at the excitement from the committee when we started talking about smaller, more classic shaped bunkers rather than the large, sand flashed bunkers we currently had. That winter at the Golf Industry Show, I was introduced to Kevin Norby, ASGCS from Hereford Norby Golf Design. During the 2017 golf season, Kevin Norby made several trips to ECGCC and a Master Plan was introduced in the winter of 2018. What originally started as a bunker renovation quickly grew into a Master Plan. Aside from modern looking bunkers, the rest of the course was still mostly original and hadn’t been very accommodating toward

lady and senior golfers. Kevin convinced us that a bunker renovation wouldn’t be appropriate without some tee renovation since the bunkers wouldn’t be utilized by half the membership without creating a shorter course. We’d already had difficultly retaining older members and the course was very long for lady golfers. It was an easy sell.

In addition, to tees and bunkers, the Master Plan included removing some of the movement from the fairways for more uniform fairway widths, wider approaches to greens, enlarging a relatively small green on the 16th par 3, tree removal (of course) and moving the 7th green (par 4) about 30 yards back. Kevin concluded by looking over old aerials of the course, that the 7th green had been moved from the original location at some point. “This seemed likely since the green lacked many of the classic characteristics of the other holes. That green

New 7th green pad is under construction just right of the skidsteer. In addition, a fairway bunker was added and fairway widened.

was very shallow, whereas most of our greens are very elevated with false fronts. It also was the smallest green on the course and prone to flooding. A beautiful little bend in Otter Creek, which bisects the course, was just calling out for a green about 30 yards behind the existing. Kevin recognized it immediately.

Kevin Norby and his partner Jon Schmenk had a goal to stay true to Vardon minimalist design and classic features of the Golden Age of golf course architecture. The master plan discussion was finalized in 2018 with Norby’s designs eliminating half the bunker square footage while keeping the same number of bunkers. Previously, the course had only 2 fairway bunkers, we now have 21. Big changes to the strategy off the tee. We went from about 73,000 square feet of bunkers to about 35,000 square feet. Better Billy Bunker liner was installed under 4-5” of ‘Fredonia’ bunker sand, a manufactured sand from Waupaca Sand and Gravel of Waupaca, Wisconsin. The native soils at ECGCC are very sandy and drainage wasn’t a concern. Due to the excellent drainage of the site, the decision was made to keep the drainage system within the trap and not daylight it since the old bunkers never held water and would help keep cost

down. You may be asking, why go with a liner if the sand didn’t hold water? Due to the native sandy soil, I recommended a liner to provide a buffer from the native sand which would mix with the expensive bunker sand creating contamination. The original plan speculation called for 50/50 Best sand from Ohio and manufactured sand, but later changed to Fredonia after discussion with several Superintendents from Southern Wisconsin.

I’m fortunate to have an excellent Green Chair in Dr. Lee Mayer, who is also a WSGA official and regularly gets to some very high-end golf facilities for tournament setup. He began scheduling meetings with the Superintendent around their Tournament schedule and picking their brain. During a circuit of events in early 2021, he kept hearing about Fredonia bunker sand, and after hearing the players talk about how great it was; the decision was made to switch. The price was half of Best sand and I preferred the color. It’s darker than Best sand and seemed more natural to western Wisconsin. Soil tests showed that the characteristics of the sand would be appropriate for a bunker sand

Opposite Page: Sod edges shaped and pea rock spread in preparation for the Better Billy bunker polymer. Below: Joys of construction in the middle of play

Old 7th hole with shallow, flood prone green. This green would be moved 30 yards back over the natural bend in the creek.

and had proven well over BBB.

Construction started shortly after Labor Day 2021 and was completed in play, in 12 weeks. I repeat, in play, 12 weeks! We got lucky that Duininck was able to come in with a large crew starting September 1, and we finished with 2 large crews right before Thanksgiving. Mother nature was on our side too! My crew and I did all the bentgrass seeding on tees and fairways and Bluegrass seeding in roughs for recovery. New greens were seeded to ‘007’ by Seed Research of Oregon, while tees and fairways were seeded with ‘Penn Trio’ by Tee 2 Green. The existing fairways have a lot of bentgrass, but of the ‘PennCross’ variety. I wanted something that would match well but have some newer varieties. Mike Manthey at Midland Hills was influential since he hosted a walk around that spring where we were able to get close to Penn Links and really see it in the field next to some old bentgrass. I felt it blended very well next to the established bentgrass.

This project could not have been accomplished without a great team. The membership was 100% on board and very tolerant of playing around construction due to the leg work of Green Chairman, Dr. Lee Mayer. Dr. Mayer really helped to promote the project to the mem-

bership and explain what the return on investment will be. His experience as a WSGA official spoke volumes, we could not have gotten this project accomplished without his influence. I remember asking Jeff Johnson at Minikahda how he got his membership to buy into his regrassing. He stated that he had a very engaged member with a marketing company that he really allowed to run with the marketing of the project. With that knowledge and Dr. Mayer’s enthusiasm, I really just stepped aside and let him lead that and provided input where appropriate. Working with Norby Designs was hugely beneficial as well. Kevin was great to work with, we had a large town hall meeting where we introduced the project to the membership, and he spoke very well in that setting. You could definitely tell that wasn’t his first time in that setting, and he knew what to expect in terms of pushback and how to respond. I think what impressed me the most about Kevin was how considerate he was of our maintenance concerns. I don’t have a big staff or budget and he was genuinely concerned that he wasn’t adding to our workload. He regularly asked for my opinion on how we would maintain his designs for the long term. Chris Kleinsmith,

Previously large sand flashed bunkers on 9th green

Project Manager, from Duininck was a wealth of knowledge, and Project Superintendent Josh Buillion did a great job. Josh was relatively new with Duininck but very organized as you’d have to be to manage a huge crew like he had for this project. We certainly couldn’t have done this project without my staff, and I’m fortunate to have a team of Allstars that aren’t afraid to work hard. We did a ton of dormant seeding and were even laying sod in December in the snow. Moving irrigation, etc. in sloppy, cold conditions and they didn’t complain once. I’d also be remiss to not mention Sam Bauer from Bauer Turf Consulting. Sam and I grew up together working on the golf course since we were 16, and I’m sure lucky to have someone with vast renovation experience to bounce ideas off and walk me through what works and what doesn’t.

With acres of dormant seeded turf and sod, a lengthy growin is to be expected this spring and early summer, but I expect to be fully established by late summer 2022. My goal is to be fully open by the time of our Member/Guest tournament at the end of June. So cross you fingers for a warm spring!